It is known in the art relating to high-pressure direct injection fuel injectors to have a swirl generator and needle guide positioned proximate a seat in a body. In known systems, seat, swirl generator, and needle guide combinations include a plurality of structural members. For example, commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,875,972 discloses two separate flat disks adjacent a seat to provide a swirl generator and a needle guide. The flat disks are thin sheet metal members that are believed to produce minimal drag on the needle of the fuel injector. To assemble this arrangement of the seat, swirl generator, and needle guide seat combination requires each of the three components to be sequentially aligned and laser welded together. Due to the numerous individual assembly steps required, misalignments could occur with the multiple components.
Another manufacturing difficulty that could result from the three components used to form the seat, swirl generator, and needle guide combination is the need to develop new assembly steps for changes in the swirl disk configuration. The three component combination employs an individual flat swirl disk, between a flat guide disk and a seat as the swirl generator. Changes in swirl disk thickness size due to varying fuel swirl requirements for selected direct fuel injection applications requires the assembly steps to be reconfigured. A known two component seat, swirl generator, and needle guide combination, described above has been developed that addresses some of the assembly difficulties of the three component combination. Although some of the assembly difficulties the three component combination may have been overcome, the two components must be oriented during assembly. In addition, the swirl generator and needle guide component employed in known two component combination is believed to create a large drag point for the employed needle. Thus, there is a need for a two component seat, swirl generator, and needle guide combination that eliminates the need to orient the components and minimizes drag forces applied to the needle valve.